Distant with a Touch of Dislike
by LesserWraith
Summary: What if Hiccup was a moody teenager living in our times? What would his conflicts have been about? A teenager-centric rant story about a boy who can't stand his parents. AU Hiccup, Toothless, Stoick, everyone. You know why it's rated T.


**Warning! Drabbles, disjointed rants, and very life-centric writing ahead! This rant/story has nothing to do with any of my other stories.**

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I don't believe it. He's calling me again.

"Hiccup, get over here," my father's voice calls me from downstairs, his voice on the borderline of annoyance.

"I'm going, dad!" I call back exasperatedly, my eyes not leaving the computer. You might think that I'm playing a game like League of Legends or Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but in reality, I'm reading Wikipedia articles and uploading drawings onto the internet, and with that my life. It's not easy to draw, or write, without letting your parents know what you're doing, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing exercises on derivatives and summarizing interesting articles that I can find on the internet. And I love it.

"Hiccup, get down here," my father's voice calls again, this time louder and more emphasized on the word _here_. "You need to do the dishes."

"I'm going!" I call back down again, returning to the world of the internet and the world of information right afterwards. I've just landed on an intriguing article about the highlighting pen and its suggested unimportance when the door behind me opens up.

"What are you doing?" my father asks, eyeing me and the computer in an annoyed fashion. "You're supposed to be doing your chores, not playing stupid games on the internet." I roll my eyes at the computer screen, grudgingly turning around to face my father's disapproving, ready-to-rant face. I want to tell him that I'm _not_ playing games, I'm trying to learn and make with my life, and that the way he calls the games _stupid_ is wrong as well, because that would be the equivalent of me calling his iPod useless, especially because he never really gets anything out of it, apart from finding time to drone on and on about random stuff all day long.

None of this I tell my father, of course, because he would give me an even longer rant than the one that he's going to give me now.

"I'm not _playing_ games, dad," I say, glaring at him. I can't tell him, of course, that I draw and write and practice my only academic professions, maths and history, because he wouldn't listen, because his mind is only on me getting the dishes done, and not focusing on the fact that he's interrupting a part of my life that I find to be more important when spent with learning more and more on the internet than doing the dishes _that_ I can do any time of the day.

"Are stupid _games_ important for your life?" he rants, ignoring me. "Will _games_ let you get a degree in university? Do you learn anything from them at all, apart from seeing them as more important than things that actually matter, like house chores and studying?"

_They're my form of entertainment, like you singing those '90s songs,_ I mentally lash at him, wishing that he'd back out right now. I'm really uncomfortable with my father. He tries to do the best for me, not knowing that the best for me right now is for him clear out and let me do the dishes after reading the articles. When I set a goal, I do it, especially if it's doing chores, but I don't want to be _forced_ to do it- that's why I get all my chores done when my father's _not_ home, but he never seems to notice it. He only notices it when he's _in_ the house and he's pissed at something.

But of course, I don't tell him any of this either. I stare him down and make a small _tut_ sound that equates to _Get the hell out._ My father only takes this as a sign of annoyance from me, and for once, he's right. To an extent.

"You know what, close the computer right now," he says, slitting his eyes in a way that would have made Toothless, a dragon alter ego that is my good side, proud. But he's not here today. He doesn't like my father either, so he often clears out when my father's here.

"I'm _working,_ dad," I say truthfully, glaring at him, but it's never going to get to him. For him, using the computer = playing on the computer. "Give me a bit more time."

"What would your mother say, eh?" he says, looking at my messy room. To be honest, it's mostly littered with countless novels that I've read, and read again, and then set aside, and then read again, but he sees it as nothing but messiness. In fact, when I asked him to read a really good classic, 'Catcher in the Rye', he flat out refused it- he said he had 'Better things to do'.

Yeah, right? Doing better things than trying to bond with your son the _right_ way. Not by getting me into this tutor and that tutor to make me learn things I'll never use, but actually accepting what I am and what I like. Always complaining that I never go outside, but when I go out with Fishlegs or Astrid, he yells at me for being a 'typical teenager that goes out with friends'. Am I doing drugs? Smoking? Drinking alcohol? No. Then why are you making me going out such a big deal, anyway?

"Close it _now,_" he growls, once again making Toothless proud. "I don't care what you're doing-" _Of course you don't,_ "-But you have to get the dishes done. _Now._"

"Just give me a minute!" I say, closing most of the tabs on the computer and leaving minimum work on the screen. I have to finish those. I want to tell him _Dad_, I'll go do the chores, but first you have to get out of my sight and I'll get everything done in peace.

"_Now,_" he raises his voice, taking a step towards me, his face frowning in anger.

I glare at him one more time as I close the remaining work that I had.

"_Fine,_" I say, closing it and walking past him audibly, leaving him to glare at me out the whole wall. My actions, not caring if my footsteps echo loudly as I make my way down the stairs, not caring if the dishes that I finally reach as loudly clanged, not caring if I become silent for the majority of the time that I'm doing the dishes, because in my head, my thoughts are running wild.

_Why_ does he keep on pushing me to do this and that? Dammit, it's so annoying! Why can't you let me be in a good mood when I do the work?! And I've never ignored the chores either. No matter how late it is, I always get the work done. Why can't he leave the dishes for later, and let me stay in my room, even for just a little while more?!

I sense my father walking past me by and I abruptly stop washing the dish in my hands. I don't like being watched when I'm working. I don't want to be bossed around. I hate it when he stares at me as I work, and slip in remarks like 'Your dishwashing needs improvement', and 'Before the computer, you were such a smart, bright, boy.'

And guess what? He blames it all on the computer. 'The reason that you wear glasses is because you play too many games', 'The reason that your grades are getting worse are because you play the computer too much', 'You were always reading before you had the computer. Now you do nothing but sit in front of it and drown in its unimportant contents.' It drives me crazy! If it was unimportant, would I be using it? And is _literature_, _drawing,_ _calculus_ unimportant? He even told me, at the new school I was applying for, that I wanted to be an engineer. Hmph! Do you think that I'm not studying? I don't even know what kind of engineer I want to be. My best hobby is writing, and only writing, but he doesn't even know. One time I wrote a report for him about something, and he said I was a terrible writer. Does he want me to become an engineer that much? I've always thought that the impression that 'Adults don't understand teenagers' was just another one of those whiny things, but when it's so real to me, it's hard to not believe in those wise words.

"And go and read something of use for once," he calls from the coffee table, where he opens that stupidly loud radio with its annoying tunes and annoying reporter voices. "Not those _Hunger Games_ stuff."

The idiot! How dare he think something as powerful as the _Hunger Games_ be unimportant? Oh, is it like the book _How to Make Friends and Influence People_ that he gave me and tried to make me read? And then, whenever I lash out at him, he tells mom that 'Our son is very uncharismatic, so unlike that kid next door'. Why doesn't he know that I'm only uncharismatic towards _him_, because he interferes with my life so much?! I try to introduce new things to him, but he never listens. He says 'He has no time'. No time, my ass. All that time alone in the room, reading some boring e-book about politics, is _that_ having no time to sit down and watch a 6 minute video? Or a 400 page novel about an epic fight between one's inner self in change and innocence?

Nonetheless, I ignore him, trying to get the dishes done as fast as I can to get him out of my eyeshot. It feels like he's cancer to my eyes. Maybe because whenever he looks at me, what he says is never about anything that I like. It's always 'Read, study' or 'Do the chores' or stuff like that, it drives me crazy!

I finish the dishes with lightning speed and clang the last dish down loudly. I spin around to sprint up back towards my room, my safe haven, the only place that I am myself, when he calls me back, his shorter body now standing in front of the dishes.

"What now?" I growl, trying hard not to spit out the words.

"The dishes are unclean. Look." He points to the stainless dishes that I washed earlier. "Come and wash them again."

"What?!" I say, slitting my own eyes. "They're _clean!_"

"Oh?" he asks, rubbing a finger along the dish. "I think not. Come here and finish it."

I resist the urge to openly bare my teeth at him and violently clean the dish and let it down with a clang.

"Huh," he says. "If you don't want to do it again, do it _cleanly_ next time."

I want to tell him to shut up, but that would definitely get me another lecture. I just want to get away from me. I just feel uncomfortable around him. I don't even let him touch me, even if it's to just pat my shoulder or rub my back, because he's trying so hard to make me happy in all the wrong ways. I need time, space, and isolation, not going outside with him and trying to do stuff that end in me arguing with him anyway.

"And don't stay up late again," he calls as I head up the stairs,

The reason that I stay up late, Mr. Know-everything-in-the-world-except-for-your-own-s on, is because you open to check my room so often that I can't concentrate on my work. I have to be on my guard for when you'd open the room again, and so only in the late night do I truly reign free in my actions. I can write and draw for hours and hours, and no one will bother me. Sometimes I stay up as late as 4 AM, even on school days, because the hours that I should have been doing the work has been taken away with my father opening the door to my room and looking around. What does he think I'm doing on the computer, watching NSFW?! He's crazy!

"Whatever," I snap at him, my tone a bit too strong as he lashes out on me.

"HEY! Don't snap at me!" he yells, walking quickly up to me. "Do you want a problem?!"

_No, you made one yourself,_ I retort mentally, but I only stare him down as he brandishes a stick.

"DO YOU?!" he yells, slamming the stick onto the ground forcefully. Somewhere in another room, my mother sighs. At least I can stand being around _her._ I wish it was her who asked me to go do this and that, and not the man that I've always learned to stay at least 4 feet away from.

"No," I say defiantly, crossing my arms. "Stop getting all mad and fired up for once."

He looks at me with a deathly glare, but I don't flinch in the slightest.

He puts down the stick and walks back to the coffee table.

On the way back, I catch phrases like 'It's like I'm _his_ son,' and 'Who is ordering who, now?' coming from his mouth. The mouth that talks and talks in front of strangers, up to the point that he embarrasses himself because the people are fed up of him, but he never knows, he never gets it, and when I point it out, he says 'Alright, YOU talk next time. YOU lead the way next time. YOU know what you're doing, aren't you?' ...and the list continues.

"And we're going out tonight," he calls, as if to add in as a final insult to my lack of freedom. Trust me. I want to be free for a while. And maybe if my father could leave me alone for that long, then I could turn into the dream child my parents want. But it's never going to happen. "But don't lash out at your mother again. She's the reason why you're still alive."

I sigh. I love going out to explore the city _alone,_ but with my father, everything is different. I don't get to buy anything, even if it's important stuff (like a novel), and it's like I'm just tagging along like a pet, my only job to carry things, and in return get nothing. Except give my parents a headache because I want to go home and I openly voice it. I know I'm whiny, but if I just went home and left them be, then both of our lives would be infinitely better. And my mother said I needed to gain experience in the outside world. Hell, I looked up a bookstore, planned out the destination from SCRATCH, and went to a mall I've never heard of in my entire life! How is _that_ not new experiences? They've never been with me when I was alone! How are they supposed to know? Oh, of course, and the "You'll know when you grow up" crap. I know that I'm not grown up yet, but do you think the more you tell me it, the more I will get it? No! If I'm going to learn something, I'm not going to be on my guard for it, that's for sure.

I sigh, going back to my computer. I fire it up, and get back to writing. The Toothless in me slowly comes back as I open the internet, and there are some old invitations from Snotlout about playing soccer, which I turn down, because I have no interest in playing soccer, and I turn down an invitation to hang out at a mall with Ruffnut, because I don't find buying clothes in a mall to be interesting at all, and the only thing I'm really looking forward to is to become Toothless, who is basically my key to sanity at this point. We share similar lives, but Toothless has a loving family (of course, noble dragon stuff), and I don't. I wish I could become that happy, carefree dragon like he is. I wish I had wings and could fly wherever I wanted to.

And I sigh, knowing that Toothless is not real, that Astrid is out with her friends and her boyfriend Snotlout, that the others all have their own lives to live, and I revert back to the real world as I finish my work.

Finally, I open up some songs, and as I listen to the lyrics, I reluctantly shake Toothless off, wishing he could actually be someone real, by my side, talking to me, and write down this story. This is going onto the internet, that's for sure. Hopefully when I'll be in a happier mood Toothless might get his share of the story.

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**For those of you who think that I am a whiny teenager that doesn't understand why parents act like the way they act, yes, you are correct.**


End file.
